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Nation in brief

4 indicted in stolen human tissue investigation

By wire services
Published February 24, 2006

NEW YORK - The owner of a biomedical supply house was charged along with three other men Thursday with secretly carving up corpses and selling the parts for use in transplants.

The case was "like something out of a cheap horror movie," Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said.

Prosecutors said the defendants obtained the bodies from funeral parlors in three states and forged death certificates and organ donor consent forms to make it look as if the bones, skin, tendons, heart valves and other tissue were legally removed.

The indictment was the first set of charges to come out of a widening scandal involving scores of funeral homes and hundreds of bodies, including that of Masterpiece Theatre host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004.

FORT BLISS, Texas - A military jury deliberated for only 15 minutes Thursday before acquitting the last of 11 Army reservists from an Ohio unit who had been charged with abusing prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Alan J. Driver kissed a photo album with pictures of his children after the verdict was read. He was the fifth of 11 soldiers from the Cincinnati-based 377th MP Company to be cleared of abusing detainees.

Driver was accused of being one of several soldiers who beat a detainee known as Habibullah, who the Army says died of his injuries. Driver was also accused of throwing a shackled and handcuffed prisoner, Omar al-Farouq, against a wall.

"I just did my job," Driver said after hugging his wife and parents. "We were put in a difficult situation with minimal training and did the best with what we had."

NEW YORK - The reputed acting boss of the city's most powerful Mafia family and 31 other alleged mob figures were charged Thursday with a host of underworld crimes, including a hit that prosecutors say was ordered by the don from behind bars.

The charges deliver "an absolute body blow" to the Genovese family, said FBI assistant director Mark J. Mershon. He said 30 people had been arrested.

The indictment accuses the defendants of engaging in money laundering, drug trafficking, extortion, gun running and murder for more than a decade.

Liborio S. "Barney" Bellomo, who prosecutors say became boss upon the 1992 arrest of Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, was accused of authorizing from prison the 1998 killing of mobster Ralph Coppola. Bellomo is serving a 10-year sentence for extortion.

[Last modified February 24, 2006, 01:41:24]